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One of the questions that I thought of was how does one get the quality of delayed gratification? Are they born with it? Do parents teach their children a certain way that they either have delayed gratification or not?
I believe that if a person has enough patience, then they can grant the quality of delayed gratification. It may, however take a lot of work and practice because when you want something, you want it now. I think parents do play a role in whether they can delay gratification or not. For example, I have a lot of little cousins and when they are told to eat their lunch, then they will get dessert sometimes they don't always finish their dinner and want the dessert right away. And usually, they get it, because their parents don't want to fight with them, so they give them the dessert anyway instead of them waiting to finish their dinner. Parents can also have a lot of patience and therefore teach their children patience and to wait to get what they want. I think this trait should obviously be taught at a young age, because seen with the marshmallow test, if one does not have delayed gratification, they may have behavior problems in the future. I also think that children see how other children act and want to follow in their footsteps and that could be a result of how they act, also.
However, as said in the article "Just Let Them Eat the Marshmallow" by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman."Eigsti’s team found that how long they could avoid eating the cookie, when they were 4 year olds, had zero correlation to IQ or self-control at age 18. Zero."
So what does the marshmallow test really mean? Did it really predict the children's future behavior and intelligence? In the article, it seems to have not. Seen from the quote above, Ingle-Marie Eigsti found out that there was no correlation from the test when the children were 4, to their IQ or self control at age 18. And there was a lot of interesting information that one would never really think about while reading the marshmallow test article. Maybe the children were all just hungry at the time and couldn't resist eating the snack. Also as quoted "First, it’s the easiest test in the world to fool. Parents can just promise their kid a pony if they don’t eat any marshmallows or cookies during the evaluation session." You would never think that going into the test, that parents could have fooled the children whether to eat or not to eat the treat. So it's a tricky question to answer, whether the test actually proves something or not. I think that there was something having to do with delayed gratification and there also was something to do with how the children act in general.
I believe that if a person has enough patience, then they can grant the quality of delayed gratification. It may, however take a lot of work and practice because when you want something, you want it now. I think parents do play a role in whether they can delay gratification or not. For example, I have a lot of little cousins and when they are told to eat their lunch, then they will get dessert sometimes they don't always finish their dinner and want the dessert right away. And usually, they get it, because their parents don't want to fight with them, so they give them the dessert anyway instead of them waiting to finish their dinner. Parents can also have a lot of patience and therefore teach their children patience and to wait to get what they want. I think this trait should obviously be taught at a young age, because seen with the marshmallow test, if one does not have delayed gratification, they may have behavior problems in the future. I also think that children see how other children act and want to follow in their footsteps and that could be a result of how they act, also.
However, as said in the article "Just Let Them Eat the Marshmallow" by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman."Eigsti’s team found that how long they could avoid eating the cookie, when they were 4 year olds, had zero correlation to IQ or self-control at age 18. Zero."
So what does the marshmallow test really mean? Did it really predict the children's future behavior and intelligence? In the article, it seems to have not. Seen from the quote above, Ingle-Marie Eigsti found out that there was no correlation from the test when the children were 4, to their IQ or self control at age 18. And there was a lot of interesting information that one would never really think about while reading the marshmallow test article. Maybe the children were all just hungry at the time and couldn't resist eating the snack. Also as quoted "First, it’s the easiest test in the world to fool. Parents can just promise their kid a pony if they don’t eat any marshmallows or cookies during the evaluation session." You would never think that going into the test, that parents could have fooled the children whether to eat or not to eat the treat. So it's a tricky question to answer, whether the test actually proves something or not. I think that there was something having to do with delayed gratification and there also was something to do with how the children act in general.
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Another question that I had was what would happen if this experiment was done on older people, such as elementary schoolers, high schoolers, or college students. The children in the experiment were four years old, so what would happen if the research was conducted on older students? Maybe not the same experiment, but something different. An example would be if you were told you would get $20, but if you sat in a room by yourself for an hour, you would get $60. What would happen? Would some people think it's not worth the extra$30, or would they take the $20 and leave? If it were me, I would hold out and wait for the extra money because I would feel it would be worth it waiting and doing nothing to get some extra cash.
What would you do during this test? Would you pass or fail? What would your mind and your delayed gratification tell you to do?
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